CoHMR Aggregator (a review thread)

Last night's arc that I fell asleep writing a review of: A Twist of Destiny (300379). Verdict - ***. Review on MA Forums Thread.

Tonight's arc: Why We Fight (253990). Verdict - ***. Review on MA Forums Thread.

Tonight's arc: a rereview of Matchstick Women (3369). Verdict - still ****. Details in MA Forums Thread.

Last night's arc that Captain Narcolepsy decided to whack me after I played: Redoubt Operations II: Wrath of the Imperium (269283) . Verdict: ****. Review on MA Forums Thread.

Nothing happening tonight what with scoping out test. Just as well. My queue's starting to get a bit anemic.

Tonight's arc: The Quantum League (286562). Verdict - **. Review lower in this thread.

@GlaziusF

Running this on a genuine lowbie, sub-teens broadsword/shield scrapper. Diff 1 for the genuine lowbie experience (forgot to correct it when I put the review on CoHMR).

---

Ah, sensible. Send someone who isn't Superman after the Kryptonite.

...uh.

A long, featureless kill-all in a warehouse.

And the enemies sap your recharge time by 20% every time one of those bolts connects.

---

Man, are these guys gonna be a regular feature? If all the minions connect that's like the opposite of Hasten.

...and as soon as I rescue the hostage I get five quantum guns to the face. Neither her nor I can move very much, and if I wasn't using my veteran ranged powers she'd be dead.

Also she has the system's stock lieutenant description.

Also I have to go through FIVE floor transitions (elevators, building door, cargo elevator) with her in tow, a couple of the rooms are a real pain to lead an escort back through (second floor of the building) and there's nothing on the way out.

---

...okay, the equipment doesn't need to say "boom" when it dies. I can see and hear it going "boom".

At the end of the objective bar I see another defeat all! That's doubly bad (this is a pretty expansive cave) since destructibles still do that thing where a guy spawns inside the destructible. If the geometry doesn't vanish, as it doesn't with these experimentation tubes, it's possible that guy can get stuck in there.

For all the help Lady E is I'd rather she show up near the middle to give me a wrecking buddy.

---

A... a Nictus powered robot? How does that even work?

But you know, okay, it's not like the Council can't build multiple giant robots.

Not okay: two glowies to click down a side passage I missed at the very beginning of the map. (Also my ally is missing her description again.)

Even worse: they spawn a boss.

...and in some kind of transcendent weirdness the boss spawns a long way away from either the giant robot viewport or the pump room just before it.

The way this map was set up I could clear it out without ever seeing the giant robot, and that's rather sad.

...I drop a warwolf Dr. Beckett and the clue refers to an... Archon Ziggy? What?

Yeah, the system text calls him Ziggy, too.

...Esc, am I playing another arc where you uploaded the wrong version of it?

---

...um, what? It's not over?

Lady E found a tracking device lab? But I thought mission 3 was her Last Mission or something.

I just blew up a giant robot base, that's a great place to end things!

So, uh. Did the Rikti even HAVE Kheldians swing by their neck of the universe? How would their technology be useful to track Khelds?

Also chained destructibles sometimes do this thing where you can't target them until you aggro their guards. This is a problem when the guards spawn on the other side of a wall, as they can here.

Since I basically did a second lap of the mission to date after hitting the glowie, why are they even spawning in at all? I've already got stuff to destroy and it didn't seem like anything chained off the mainframes.

Lady E is... at the end. Even after the Archon that spawns in.

I take him down but the mission goal is still there. Maybe his ambushes?

...nope.

Ah, right, there's a minion of his who spawned down a staircase behind a pile of crates. NOW the mission's over.

---

Storyline - ***. Like I said, I really didn't get the point of that last mission. Even if by proxy, I blew up a giant robot. The whole "I found the tracking system" just flies in out of left field, and it can't be allowed to succeed because voids still show up for Kheldians.

Design - *. Five elevators of backtracking with a hostage, two defeat alls, allies who in most cases I rescue largely after the mission is already over, some rather bizarre objective placements, and a custom group that really isn't suitable for characters of all levels to fight.

Gameplay - **. And here's why. Shield doesn't really factor into this, but a lot of defense sets don't get the tools to deal with negative energy damage until later in their career. And for anybody who's resistance-based, rather than defense-based, those bolts can seriously eat into the recharge rate. Lower-level characters don't yet have a full attack chain, let alone one with enough padding to handle the large recharge debuffs quantum guns deal out.

Detail - **. My non-Kheldian ally never had a description, and there was the matter of that confusion over the archon's name in mission 4. Clues are supposed to make you feel less confused, not more.

Overall - **. Esc, I strongly suspect this is another arc you uploaded an early, buggy version of, but if that's the case I'm not giving this a re-review. You've had time to check. This whole thing just feels unfinished and untested.

Tonight's random arc: The Doom That Came To Paragon City (28540). Verdict - ***. Review below in this thread.

My current queue consists solely of arcs by Venture and arcs by Escalus, so if somebody else would like to jump into the carnival I'd be happy to give 'em a shot.

@GlaziusF

Alright, who's gonna fight doom, who's gonna fight doom... earth/emp controller's gonna fight doom.

On diff 3 for the boss fights.

With a magnaboosted animated stone.

GO TIME.

---

Okay, briefing gives me freaky reports from an abandoned warehouse. "Loathing" is a good word to use "almost physical" with, "nausea" not so much. Nausea's pretty physical as it is.

Hmm. Interesting customs, pretty austere costuming. Something bothers me a little about the description, though. Using phraseology like "the remains of a former human being", doubling down on decay as it were, makes it sound like the monster was once human, then became something else, then turned into the rotten thing I see before me.

It's just odd to see.

Anyway. Last time I found something like this it was a bunch of Warriors who did the wrong thing and got slaughtered. This time it's some civilians. End cause - probably not Envoy of Shadows, he's more with the burning. But there are older and fouler things than Orcs in the dark places of the earth.

---

You know, occasionally heavy industry is an accidental acquirer of these ancient spirits of evil. Archaeological digs into ancient forgotten cities, and that kind of thing.

With MAGI and the like around it's probably a lot less accidental most times.

I get ready to stealth past the innocent bystanders and then the patrol starts ranting about death and decay.

Then I check the descriptions.

Yeah, not so innocent bystanders. Smash time.

Apparently there are more of those zombie tablets out there somewhere.

And a cult leader. DM/invuln? Experiencing custom powersets with my body is not a high priority, I hope you'll understand.

And they worship an ancient forgotten god who wants to turn everything into goop. Better not let the ancient forgotten god who wants to hunt everything down and kill it and the ancient forgotten god who wants to eat the world get wind of that, there could be an ancient forgotten dust-up and the latter two are the killin' sort.

---

Um... hang on a second. Why's Azuria asking me to be gentle with the guards?

Oh, I see. They're not clueless law-abiding private security, they're clueless drug-pushing private security. That makes all the difference.

Strangely enough none of the boxes I actually have to tag show up in the loading dock at the back. I guess there's nothing like a boss you could put there or anything, but I'd like to see some "decoy" crates with other illicit goods the Family's been running, or records of their employment by Crawford, or something.

---

Okay, how does Azuria know we missed one? Just by the pricking of her thumbs, or was there actual evidence of it in the warehouse?

Maybe that's something to put in mission 3, a Family boss who fesses up to shipping one out to the hospital and doesn't get what your big deal is.

A clear-all in the asylum map. ...joy.

That place is hard enough to find my way around. At least there aren't any patrols or anything getting themselves tucked behind partitions.

Big U is an AV downgrade, so I burn a Shivan to mow him down. I get lucky with purple triangles and take out his minions with little effort.

He does chew the scenery admirably, I'll give him that.

---

Storyline - **. I'm not really feeling this one. It feels like an abbreviated version of some of the Banished Pantheon or CoT arcs that are out there, with a different coat of paint slapped on top. I don't know if it's the warehouses precisely that got me thinking along those lines, given that a couple notable arcs start out that way, but the Banished Pantheon especially are pretty much exactly a cult of an ancient forgotten god who want to summon it up and wreak havoc on the world. Why make up a new one? Also the missions do a pretty good job of having natural links from one to another, but that breaks for no reason I can work out in the interim between missions 3 and 4.

Design - ***. A lot of the missions are really sparse. The last one I can't remember having anything notable in it aside from the boss. While in one sense that's a help with getting a coherent image of the goals of this new group, in another sense it hurts because they're exactly the same as the goals of the Banished Pantheon, just swap out a name.

Gameplay - ****. Generally solid stuff here, though hunting down spawns that got split around the dividers in the asylum was a chore. You could probably get away with just an abandoned office map there, really, and most of the rooms would be much more open.

Detail - ****. Most of my problem with the story comes in at a higher level. The custom groups and mission details are sparse but pretty true to what they should be.

Overall - ***. A story that did what it set out to do - unfortunately, from where I see it, what it set out to do was replay a Banished Pantheon arc with different actors.

Review request:

My will (Arc ID: 136438) by @Petal Mist

It's submitted to CoHMR as well. Thank you!

Edit: The arc is designed for lowbies.

@GlaziusF

Playing this on a merc/TA mastermind, low 40s, diff 3 for real bosses without real crowds. (Show of hands, who's glad to be able to put bosses back on Heroic?)

---

...okay, this is shaping up to be some amazing parody right out the gate. Why do I get the feeling this'll be only slightly less dangerous than the average tour of duty in Alpha Complex?

Well, since the Manticore Task Force brought in some outside help I guess I can contract out too. Me and my boys mow through the Longbow, and get a bit stopped up when a patrol and Hopkins' group intersect with a normal spawn.

Every now and then I forget Crey actually has some LEGITIMATE BUSINESS to run. Jenny's a nice reminder, but she'll probably be a plant from Longbow, they generally are.

The crate labels are some pretty funny reading.

---

Ah, office work. Given that the dress code includes navy spandex and white ferroplastic armor I think I'm pretty good.

You know, even if I did quit my life of crime I still remember most of it. I like to think I'm a bit aware that Crey's a little, shall we say, shady? So even if my villain isn't in on the specifics of the things they did in Paragon City it probably shouldn't be too surprising to see the PPD storming in.

I bring in the temps and we go rampaging.

...Jenny, I'd like to have a little fun here, but according to my horoscope for today now is not a good time to photocopy my butt and staple it to my boss's face.

The security chief warning me about the cops seems like he'd make more sense at the start of the mission than at the end, though.

---

R and D! NOW we're getting up to Alpha Complex levels of lethality.

So, experiments. Somebody from the MTF in mission one, a Lesser Devoured (and weren't they all men once, really?), and... a giant pile of algae! I mean, Hydra.

The problem with all the ally spawns hanging around is that, first, a captive escorted by allies cons hostile but is still an invalid target, and second, they tend to get involved in the various boss fights and running battles. Jenny was free before I even did anything. Maybe a larger, emptier lab map?

Doctor Power Tank is a bit of a surprise when he jumps from behind some protruding power tubes, but all in all successful.

---

Hmm.

Aw, they're all hostile right away? It'd be kind of funny if there were a couple allied patrols and Jenny left the schedule on your desk in the back and you picked it up to find "things to do today: DIE, MEATBAG" and then the place filled up with hostile automatons.

...wait, what's the MTF doing hanging around here?

Oh, I see. Poor Ken.

The killbot is kind of amusing but... uh... how do I put this delicately? Lord Nemesis is not exactly known for his progressive attitudes.

The clue about crisis management should probably come after Jenny's briefing, too. But that can wait for I16 and objective rearrangement.

---

Wow, 15 minutes? I hope it's going to be a small map.

Fortunately it looks that way.

...I have this terrible suspicion as to the identify of the mole. The managers are nice enough fights but you'd think some of them would be trying to justify the terrible things they did in the name of SCIENCE, or something.

Hmm. Wonder if they fix that timed map + hostage bug in I16. Time to see if I can fail this the stupid way by just walking on by the cops.

Ah, they're optional. Well, time to see what they say anyway!

Sadly generic. I have no idea what Crey was doing here, which is rather a shame because it's probably hilarious. But in the end, you don't get a higher security clearance if you don't turn in those Commie mutant traitors.

---

Storyline - ****. Needs some suitably nefarious scheme to round things out, but more than that I'd like to see other recurring ally (or at least notional ally) characters besides Jenny. Operative Vargas's nephew, a deep-cover Nemesis automaton, one of those hivemind Paragon Protectors - some other recurrent thread. As it was the penny dropped on the last mission a long time before I actually reached her, just because I wondered what she'd wind up doing. Maybe that's just me being weird. ...also if this is a Countess Crey patron arc it's kind of odd that I start it off trying to go straight. That idea seems to evaporate by mission 3 anyway. You could probably get the same effect if Security Chief Contact was all "So you're after the support of Crey Industries, eh? Well, you have to start at the bottom and work your way up. Just like Countess Crey!"

Design - *****. Some good custom work to flesh out various enemy groups, and the Manticore Task Force is pretty nicely put together as well. I also like the way the mission environments work their way up from dingy warehouse to executive office space.

Gameplay - ****. Mission 3 was pretty much autopilot up until the end because of the large number of ally spawns and the way battles pulled them all around the map. Maybe instead of static scientist spawns pull a Crey ally ambush at 3/4 boss health, riff on only one of them actually showing up to help. I was a bit worried about the timer in the last mission but I had about 5 minutes to spare, so worries unfounded.

Detail - *****. All-round solid work on pretty much everything I bothered to take a look at.

Overall - *****. I can think of some things I'd do differently, but in the end humor fills a lot of the gaps. It's a good light run.

Thanks much for trying out Papers and Paychecks!

Quote:

...okay, this is shaping up to be some amazing parody right out the gate. Why do I get the feeling this'll be only slightly less dangerous than the average tour of duty in Alpha Complex?

I hadn't thought of the analogy to Paranoia until you mentioned it, but you're right, it is an apt comparison. "Congratulations Citizen $name! You have been promoted to Orange Security Clearance! Please report to Morale and Reeducation Center 1556/B for your new work assignment!" I could see it.

Quote:

You know, even if I did quit my life of crime I still remember most of it. I like to think I'm a bit aware that Crey's a little, shall we say, shady? So even if my villain isn't in on the specifics of the things they did in Paragon City it probably shouldn't be too surprising to see the PPD storming in.

This is a fair comment. We, as players, all know that Crey is dirty; but, most of the official canon on Crey is that most people think they are legit, and only nutty conspiracy theorists think otherwise. For example:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Manticore TF Listen, $name, I don't care what you read in the paper, Countess Crey isn't the humanitarian she pretends to be. I need you to help me find out what's going on behind Crey's closed doors.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gordon Stacy's background story ....after busting up a few too many shady deals on Crey property, he became suspicious. Recently he has been very vocal in his condemnation of the corporate giant, an unpopular attitude that nearly cost him his promotion to captain.

....so that's the angle I went with. The player signs on with Crey thinking they're a typical multinational corporation, then gradually sinks deeper and deeper into unethical business practices.

Quote:

The security chief warning me about the cops seems like he'd make more sense at the start of the mission than at the end, though.

I'll see if I can move his spawn point closer to the front. It's admittedly somewhat random where he gets positioned.

Quote:

The problem with all the ally spawns hanging around is that, first, a captive escorted by allies cons hostile but is still an invalid target, and second, they tend to get involved in the various boss fights and running battles. Jenny was free before I even did anything. Maybe a larger, emptier lab map?

Yeah, I see what you mean. This map is pretty crowded and I find that the friendly Crey often fight with some of the mission objectives before you can get involved. I'm hesitant to make the map bigger, because the player already may have to backtrack to find the glowy (triggered by defeating the boss), and I don't want to force them to backtrack too far. I'm thinking about reducing the number of friendly spawns, though, which could help with this problem. Also you're right that the captive guarded by friendly mobs gets flagged as enemy; might have to take him out. He's programmed as a captive because it's really a "scientist" hostage, not a boss type mob, but it IS kind of annoying that you can end up targeting him, but can't actually attack him.

Quote:

The killbot is kind of amusing but... uh... how do I put this delicately? Lord Nemesis is not exactly known for his progressive attitudes.

Admittedly true but I like Barbie's lines about the glass ceiling enough that I'm inclined to keep them. She also needs to mention Lord Nemesis in order to motivate the triggered objective.

Quote:

The clue about crisis management should probably come after Jenny's briefing, too.

The way it currently works is that Jenny tells you about the meetings with Ken and Barbie. Having the meeting with Barbie triggers the Nemesis crisis. Jenny is really just reading off your day planner schedule, so I don't think she would necessarily know that a Nemesis plot was about to happen; I think Barbie's dialog is a more natural lead-in to the Nemesis objective.

Quote:

Wow, 15 minutes? I hope it's going to be a small map. ... Fortunately it looks that way.

I deliberately set this really short, so that if a player decides to opt out of this mission, she doesn't have to wait too long.

Quote:

I have no idea what Crey was doing here, which is rather a shame because it's probably hilarious. .... Needs some suitably nefarious scheme to round things out

Hmm, a good point. I'll need to think about a "suitably nefarious scheme" to insert into mission 5. (Apparently downsizing wasn't nefarious enough )

Quote:

I'd like to see other recurring ally (or at least notional ally) characters besides Jenny. Operative Vargas's nephew, a deep-cover Nemesis automaton, one of those hivemind Paragon Protectors - some other recurrent thread.

Hmm, an interesting idea. I have room for more allies (this arc clocked in pretty low on disk space because I used a lot of standard models), but I would need to figure out a role for this new character. I'll give it some thought.

Quote:

also if this is a Countess Crey patron arc it's kind of odd that I start it off trying to go straight. That idea seems to evaporate by mission 3 anyway.

Yeah, I started with the idea that it would be a Countess Crey patron arc, but this idea evolved and I ended up deciding that "You give up being a villain for a steady job; hijinks ensue" was a better adventure hook for the arc. Early on I thought the Countess would be my contact, but I pretty quickly decided that she had better things to do than talk with lowly employees, and having a faceless security chief be your contact would help support the basic depersonalization of the office setting. The fact that the idea of "going straight" evaporates by mission 3 is kind of intentional; you start off doing some pretty innocuous work, but as you work your way up through the Crey management structure, you end up doing more and more unethical things.

Quote:

Mission 3 was pretty much autopilot up until the end because of the large number of ally spawns and the way battles pulled them all around the map.

I think I agree with this; I'll try and do some tuning of this mission.

Quote:

Overall - *****. I can think of some things I'd do differently, but in the end humor fills a lot of the gaps. It's a good light run.

Thanks a bunch!

The arc is in CoHMR now. I contacted El Furioso, he said that maybe I submitted during database backing up. Thanks!

I have 3 Story Arcs I need some looking-at (not trash-talking, which I will Ignore):

"Tainted Waters" (Arc #69315) 2 Missions; 2nd Mission has a Custom Group.
> Fight the Contaminated before they infect the entire city!
> This was my very 1st Story Arc, which originally only had the 1st Mission. I imported this from the Test Server, and loved Test-Running it there. I added the 2nd Mission after a long period of thinking through the psuedo-story behind the eventually multi-Mission Arc. I'm especially curious what you think of my Custom-made Faction, which includes Lts, a couple of Bosses, and an Elite Boss. Any help in perfecting this Arc is welcome, since its my current pride and joy...

"Snake In the Grass" (Arc #2610) 1 Mission
> The Mercy Island Snakes have come to Paragon; and you're Pest Control.
> Created after the thrill of the AE Expansion wore off, I made it as a way for Heroes to take a stab at fighting the Snakes. My choice of a Warehouse instead of a Snake Hole was story-driven; I plan to expand it to several Missions, which will include Rogue Isle Snake Holes, Collections, a Rescue or 2, and possibly even an Ally. This one is something I'll work on as I feel comfortable with it....


"Hellion SmackDown" (Arc #23086) 2 Missions
> Those annoying gang-wannabees are making trouble for a friend. Stomp 'em!
> This started as an Experiment Arc, trying new things and other "Frankenstein" activities. I cleaned it up for Publishing; but I'm still not convinced I should have in its current state. The Tiki Lounge was because it came in a set of Maps I ticket-purchased; The Collection was to get familiar with it prior to any use in my Snake-Arc. All and all, this one I'm expecting critical remarks about, since its sort of the runt-child of the 3....

=======================================
"MaddDawg" (Tech Scrapper 25: Claws / Regen / Fly / Fitness) Infinity

StarrBlast (Tech Blaster 10: Energy Blast / Energy Manipulation / Fly) Victory

Prof Death (Magic Mastermind 12 : Necromancy / Dark Miasma / Fly) Guardian

Sorry for the absence. This weekend I've been mostly catching up on my sleep. Let's get the week rolling with My Will (136438). Verdict - **. Review below in this thread.

@GlaziusF

Back in the saddle, playing this on my lowbie ice/fire dom, diff 1 for the genuine lowbie experience.

---

Ah, the Circle. They do stock up weird bits of mystical knowledge about anything and everything.

The cave has a characteristic fragrance, according to the intro dialogue. So it... smells like a cave? I think the Circle's characteristic incense is jasmine and sandalwood, but don't quote me on that.

Lowbie Circle are a real pain, with the spectrals hanging around every dang where. I figured I'd be FIGHTING Coralax, so I really didn't worry, but.

No system text on interacting with the diary or the... uh.. coffin? I get system text on finishing the interaction with the coffin, that someone's tAmpered with it (note spelling), but no clue there either.

Merulina splashed down sometime in the Cretaceous and fell asleep as the Coralax established their empire over the waters. There's not really a timeline given per se, but the odds are it happened sometime before there was even such a thing as a "human" walking around on the dry land.

But okay, let's take this at face value and keep going.

---

Into a burning warehouse (don't like Oranbega much, do you?) with some silent Circle guarding silent coral monsters and Merulina, who speaks, on the top floor.

Funnily enough she doesn't look anything like the coral imbued with her essence. I guess that's alright given that she probably wasn't made of coral to begin with, but she looks more like a recolor of Numina.

---

And the final mission is in... the Banished Pantheon caves?

More of these captive coral guys. Called "coral wardners" (probably another typo).

Merulina is jeering at her captors. How do I know this? Because jeering includes a little animation loop where the jeerer jumps up and down like a monkey.

So it looks like there's a hard group around the... cauldron which somehow contains soil but still has its default description. And that means a hard ambush shows up to whack me in the back of the head once I engage the guards... and another hard ambush apparently shows up once I successfully defend it? Wow. That's a lot of ambushes for a lowbie to deal with.

---

Storyline - *. This is just really, really hard to buy. Merulina's set up within the game as a Cthulhu-style ancient horror who lies sleeping in the heart of a city built from her own body. The Coralax are Deep Ones with the serial numbers filed off. Moving from that to some Althena-style abdication from godhood is kind of a lot to swallow. I mean, even assuming an ageless being that saw the universe born fell in love and wondered where to go from there, Merulina's got a trick in her bag Althena never did, and it's the same one that a lot of mythologies pull: the goddess's lover gets a spoonful of immortality. Occasionally it has ironic limitations, but it's still immortality, and it's not like there's anything stopping Merulina from doing to an ugly bag of mostly water what she did to the coral. And there's never actually a mention of who it is Merulina was supposed to have fallen in love with, or any other link back, like what their children went on to do. It's just treated as a given that Merulina would fall in love with somebody land-side and give up the whole "ancient being from beyond the stars" shtick, and I just can't buy that.

Design - ***. I really don't get why none of the missions take place in Oranbega. The Banished Pantheon caves are of the cramped blue variety, even more annoying in their own way than Oranbega could manage to be. I was expecting more from Merulina than just some palette-swapped Numina, or whatever she actually was. Something more "beyond the stars" and less "human in a robe".

Gameplay - ***. Even with the small herd of followers I wound up with, the ambushes coming after the final protectable seemed more interested in me. That was a bit of fun rezzing and backtracking. And the second time it was just a rez outside, since the mission was already complete. This is on top of low-level CoT ghosts being pains to fight all on their own.

Detail - **. There's a lot missing here - speech from the CoT escorts of pretty much any hostage/ally, even if the hostage/ally isn't vocal, system text for interacting with the glowies, at least one clue for something (Merulina's grave) that I'm supposed to have seen, and some kind of explanatory text for the cauldron that's supposed to represent some grave dirt.

Overall - **. Don't be afraid to put the Circle in Oranbega. But the real stumbling block for me was the reason behind Merulina's disappearance. There are a lot of interesting ways you might be able to take the idea of Merulina's love being her undoing somehow, but I can't buy that she just decided to abandon both the people she created for herself and the ancient memories of the sea of stars. (perhaps her lover goes mad when the immortality transforms him and leads a schism that cuts the Coralax off from her?)